


A Story About Furniture

by HugeAlienPie



Series: The Sitcom Verse [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Normal Life, Attempted Adulting, Craigslist, Deaf Clint Barton, Didn't Know They Were Dating, First Kiss, First Meetings, Food, M/M, Melinda May Is Heavily Armed, Minor Injuries, Pre-Relationship, So That's Like Canon, Trans Character, Unconventional Families, past Phil Coulson/Melinda May - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-01 11:29:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15773220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HugeAlienPie/pseuds/HugeAlienPie
Summary: Clint was a small business owner selling off pieces of his old life to be "more adult." Phil was a recent divorcé whose kids were threatening to stop visiting his new apartment unless he got more furniture. Their meeting was fate. Well, okay, their meeting was Craigslist. Everything else was fate.





	A Story About Furniture

**Author's Note:**

> This all started almost three years ago when I said to [the_wordbutler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wordbutler), "With brighter lighting and a more upbeat soundtrack, _Agents of SHIELD_ is a sitcom about a divorced couple who have to move back in with their grown children and various significant others." Headcanons are a gateway drug, kids.
> 
> So I wrote this story, and a couple others, but I promised myself I wouldn't post them until I wrote the "main" story in the series. Now it's three years later and I _still_ haven't written the "main" story, so... screw it. I'm going to start posting these other stories, because they bring me joy, and they shouldn't be languishing in the cloud.
> 
> Begun while watching AoS s2, so later-season characters won't start appearing until later stories.

**_August 2009_**

Bucky rose from his chair and tapped his fork against his pint glass. "All right, punks, listen up." Sam snorted and leaned back, draping his arm across the back of Steve's chair. At the other end of the table, Bruce smirked into his Sprite. Natasha leaned forward, chin on her hand. Clint leaned on Natasha because he was too trashed to stay upright on his own. "We're here tonight to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Hawkeye Compliance. When Clint started this thing, we all thought he wouldn't last out the month. Even he thought that. But despite our dire predictions, the bastard's kept Hawkeye on the tracks for five years, and it gets more successful every day."

"We really hate that about you, man," Sam said, reaching over to smack Clint's shoulder.

"To Clint!" Bucky said, lifting his glass. "Finally a real goddamn adult."

The others chorused, "To Clint!" clinked their glasses, and drank.

The implication of Bucky's words sank in as Clint lowered his beer bottle. " _Shit_ ," he whimpered as he thunked his head against the sticky table. _Finally a real goddamn adult._ He was 36 years old, and they were celebrating the fifth anniversary of his flourishing ADA compliance consulting firm. He _was_ a real adult now. He ought to start acting like one.

Which would probably be really painful.

*

As soon as Clint stumbled out of bed the next afternoon, he sat down with his laptop and logged onto Craigslist. He couldn't remember why he _had_ a Craigslist account. Half a difficult hour later, he'd written this:

_Successful small business owner figures it's time to stop living like That Guy Who Crashed in Your Frat House Basement. The following markers of immaturity MUST go: one '70s-style L-shaped couch, beige (not from the '70s); two recliners, dark purple; one coffee table, unknown wood. All well-loved but in good condition, except the coffee table, which is pretty scuffed. I might also be willing to part with my wobbly dining set._

_$75 for couch, $25 each for recliners and coffee table, OBO for whole set._

_Please help before my friends stage another "grownup intervention." The last one involved a month of Ingmar Bergman marathons and restaurants with dress codes_.

Clint attached a picture of the couch and chairs, hit "Post," and closed the laptop, wishing he felt less like he was abandoning a box of puppies on a sidewalk.

*

_Yeah. Give me your furniture._

*

_OMG your post is SOOOO funny! My parents are TOTALLY like your friends. They told me it's time I started living like an adult and taking care of things for myself. Like, they'll pay for the furniture for the condo they bought me OR my spring break trip to Cabo, and finding cheap furniture online seemed easier than finding a cheap trip to Cabo that's not, like, secretly white slavers. So how old is the furniture, because I can't have anything older than 2y. And purple isn't going to work with my condo's interior. Can you reupholster the chairs before you bring them to me?_

*

_How well does the dark purple hide blood and other... stuff?_

*

_Clint, James showed me the listing for your furniture. We're proud of you, ptichka._

Why the hell was Bucky trawling Craigslist for furniture?

*

Clint hadn't anthropomorphized his furniture. But after a few hours he felt like he would be a terrible human being if he let _any_ of these people take his stuff.

*

_Hi. I think your maturity crisis is the solution I've been looking for._

_I'm recently divorced, and the furniture stayed in the house with my ex-wife. Which is great, because we spent for goddamned ever picking furniture that went with the house, and it wouldn't fit in my apartment anyway._

_Not that you care about that._

_I don't mind not having real furniture, but my kids have threatened to stop coming over unless I have something besides folding chairs because, and I quote, "my ass is a princess, Dad, okay? It was made for better than this." I don't know what that means, but I think the upshot is that I need a couch and some chairs._

_Can you send a picture of the dining set, as well? Apparently tray tables are for "sad old ladies and '80s sitcom families." The children are our future._

_-PJ_

*

Okay. _This_ , Clint could work with.

*

_Hi, PJ._

_Sorry about your divorce. I hope it was at least kind of amicable? Your kids sound great. It's nice that they're looking out for you—totally what they're doing, btw, even if they sound like they're complaining about being comfortable. They want you to have a HOME, not a sad bachelor apartment. Idk if you want to go from "sad bachelor" to "flat-broke ex-carnie," but the furniture's in good shape and will be fine for a "princess ass," whatever that is._

_Hawkeye_

1 attachment: rickety_dining_set.jpg

*

_Hawkeye,_

_I'll give you $200 cash for everything. Here's my phone number. If you accept my offer, please call so we can set up a time for me to pick up the furniture._

_PJ_

*

PJ was really good-looking. That was the first thing Clint noticed. Tenish years older than Clint, sandy brown hair, laugh lines by his sparkling blue eyes, and a ready smile. They hadn't exchanged a word yet, and Clint was ready to offer him way more than furniture.

Also, his left hand was a _way_ top-of-the-line prosthetic. Not that Clint was _specifically_ looking, but spotting assistive devices was a part of his job that was pretty much always on. He couldn't _not_ notice.

"Hawkeye?" PJ said, and, _oh_ , that was a nice voice, a perfect mix of competence and warmth.

"Clint," Clint corrected him, holding out his hand. "PJ?"

PJ shook. Clint didn't want to let go of that strong grip. "Phil."

"Seriously, Cheese?"

Clint jumped, dropping Phil's hand. A towering, bald, black-clad _pirate_ , complete with eyepatch, had materialized at the top of the stairs and was looming behind Phil, arms crossed, his single eye holding enough glare for _at least_ two.

Phil rolled his eyes. "Yes, I know. Human interaction gives you hives."

The pirate's grin was way scarier than his scowl. "I'm plenty good with human interaction."

Phil pursed his lips. "Drone strikes are not a viable option for interpersonal relationships, Nick."

Clint had a lot of regrets.

Phil turned back to Clint, smiling ruefully. "This is Nick. Please forgive him. He's career military and doesn't remember how the rest of civilization works. We don't usually let him out in public, but he's the friend with the truck, so I kind of need him."

Clint laughed. "I have a friend like that, too. He's also the friend with the truck."

"Can we get a move on?" Nick demanded. "If I'm not back in the office by three, Mackenzie's gonna steal my damned desk chair."

Clint blinked. "It's Sunday."

Phil grimaced. "We don't exactly keep normal schedules."

"Are you military, too?" Clint asked as he stood aside for the others to enter.

Nick snorted. "Uh, no," Phil said. "I mean, I was in the Army, but I didn't sell my soul to it like Nick did. I just have a very demanding job."

"You have a very demanding _boss_ ," Nick said tartly.

"Yes, Nick," Phil snapped back with equal acerbity, "I know how you feel about Tony. _Everyone_ knows how you feel about Tony."

"So," Clint said loudly to break the sudden tension, "here's the stuff." He grimaced as Lucky's barks grew more frantic and less ignorable. "Sorry about my dog. I shut him in the bedroom so he couldn't run, and he's _not_ happy about it."

Phil and Nick came back to themselves. "I get it," Phil said. "We had a lot of pets when the kids were younger." He looked at the living room set and smiled. "Oh, these are great. Even better than the picture."

Nick disagreed, judging by his frown. " _Damn_ , those are _really_ purple chairs."

"I told you," Phil said, forehead creasing.

"Yeah, but I didn't think you meant..." Nick waved his hand. " _That_."

Phil huffed and turned away. "Yeah, this is perfect. Just what I'm looking for. But—" The forehead creases came back, and Clint wanted to do _whatever_ it took to make them go away, to make things better for this guy he'd just met. "I'm not sure we can fit it in the truck."

" _You_ can't fit it in the truck." Nick stalked forward and examined the living room set. "But if you'll recall who packed your damned duffel for two years, you'll know that _I_ can." He shook his head and muttered under his breath about Phil having worse spatial perception than a man with one eye.

Clint tuned him out and turned back to Phil. "Think your kids will like it?"

Phil gave a soft smile, and Clint's heart honest-to-god _fluttered_. "Jemma might wrinkle her nose at the purple, but they'll all be happy to have a place to sit."

"Is Jemma the one whose ass is a princess?" Clint asked. Next to the recliners, Nick gave a burst of startled laughter.

"No, that was Daisy." Phil shook his head. "She'll _love_ the purple."

"As touching as this is," Nick said, "can we load this shit so I can save _my_ chair?"

"Mack isn't going to steal your chair, Nick."

"Shows what you know."

They got the stuff down the stairs and into Nick's truck fairly easily. Then Clint was standing on the sidewalk in front of Phil, two hundred bucks in his hand and one more remnant of his early 20s going to be part of someone else's life. For a minute Clint wanted to ask Phil—what? On a date? To hang around? Phil had an ex-wife and at least two kids; the odds of him being into guys, let alone into Clint, weren't great. And, honestly, would Clint _want_ to date someone he'd met through a Craigslist furniture sale? He felt very confused.

Nick cleared his throat from the driver's side. "Time's a-wastin', Coulson," he called.

Phil gritted his teeth but turned toward the truck. "I don't like to encourage him," he said, loud enough for Nick to hear, "but he's my ride."

Clint smiled. "Yeah."

There was another _moment_ , where Clint felt like things might've gone a different way if they'd had time. But with Nick's intimidating presence shadowing their every move, the timing seemed wrong, and the moment dissolved before Clint could get his hand around it.

"See you around?" Phil asked, and Clint could almost convince himself Phil was smiling hopefully.

"Sure thing." Clint raised a hand in a half-wave. "Later."

Phil and Nick climbed into the truck and pulled away. Clint pretended to believe he'd see them again.

The next morning, Clint caught a redeye to Orlando for a consultation that promised to overrun every limit of time, budget, and patience set for it. Before he left, he took a picture of the vast emptiness of his living/dining room area and texted it to Natasha, Bucky, Steve, Sam, and Bruce with the message, _Adulting Phase I: achieved_.

Five a.m. flights, an empty apartment, and letting one of the most interesting guys he'd met in ages walk away. So far, being a real adult sucked.

*

The Orlando job was even worse than expected. He was away from DC for so long, apparently, that Natasha got tired of waiting and replaced his furniture.

Everything was sleek and modern, chrome and dazzlingly white upholstery, stunning to look at and impossible to sit on. If he sat normally, his ass hurt. If he leaned back, his lumbar hurt. If he sat sideways with his back against the arm and his legs stretched out, his hips hurt. He realized he wasn't a college student anymore, but he didn't usually have this much pain.

He was terrified of setting anything on the coffee table and almost gave himself a panic attack thinking about eating at the dining table. When Lucky jumped onto the couch and promptly slid off, they only had one choice: they had to get out of here.

If he went to Nat and Bucky's, he'd have to explain _why_ , and, hey, _you_ try explaining to two people with eight black belts and a couple thousand hours of weapons training between them that you didn't appreciate a _very nice thing_ they'd done for you. It was Friday, which meant Sam and Steve were having date night. They would let Clint stay, but the only thing that sounded _less_ comfortable than his furniture was being around the two of them while they blushed and bumbled their way through the honeymoon phase of their relationship. Bruce's phone went straight to voicemail twice, which meant he was either blowing shit up in his lab or enjoying the three-way friends-with-benefits arrangement the rest of them weren't supposed to know about. He could call Wanda and Pietro, but he was trying to convince them he had his life in some semblance of order. Nothing worried employees more than a sense that the boss couldn't function well enough to keep the company afloat.

It depressed him to say it, but that was it. Those were his friend options. He had no one else to go to.

He pulled out his phone and sent the text he'd promised himself he wouldn't.

 **TO PJ:** Hey Phil it's Clint. How's the furniture?

If Clint were being brutally honest, he didn't expect _any_ response from Phil, so when his phone vibrated with a new message less than twenty seconds later, he was so surprised he almost dropped it.

 **FROM PJ:** great!!!

 _Three_ exclamation marks. Clint was smitten.

 **FROM PJ:** u didn't tell me the recliners were sooooo comfortable  
**FROM PJ:** fitz and i havne't left them for days

 **TO PJ:** Glad you're enjoying them. Who's Fitz?

_Don't say boyfriend. Please don't say boyfriend._

**FROM PJ:** i am!

What?

 **FROM PJ:** Sorry, Clint. This is Phil. My son stole my phone while I was out of the room.

 **TO PJ:** Fitz?

 **FROM PJ:** y

_Yes! Not boyfriend!_

**FROM PJ:** He's not wrong about the chairs though.

 **TO PJ:** Cool. Listen

Crap. Hadn't meant to hit send yet.

 **FROM PJ:** You can't have them back.

 **TO PJ:** Don't want them. It's just  
**TO PJ:** my bff got me new furniture while I was out of town. It sux. I'll never get this audit report done this way

 **FROM PJ:** You want to come visit your couch?

 **TO PJ:** god CAN i?

 **FROM PJ:** Daisy and Jemma would PROBABLY make room on the couch. You'll have to fight Fitz and me for the chairs.

 **TO PJ:** I will sit at the table i don't even care.

A few seconds later an address popped onto the screen, along with a Google map showing the best route from Clint's place.

 **TO PJ:** You are a GODSEND. be there in 30  
**TO PJ:** Uh  
**TO PJ:** can I bring my dog?

 **FROM PJ:** Daisy and Jemma say if you DON'T bring the dog, they'll disown me.

The address was in Arlington, a four-apartment building in a nice neighborhood. A _really_ nice neighborhood. Why had a man who could afford to live here bought home furnishings off Craigslist? Suddenly self-conscious about his fifteen-year-old Carson's Carnival of Traveling Wonders T-shirt, paint-spattered jeans, battered motorcycle jacket, and satchel that was clearly on its last legs, to say nothing of his goofy one-eyed dog, Clint climbed the stairs, rang the bell, and hoped for the best.

After a moment that felt unreasonably stretched out, the door opened, and Clint was facing a small-framed young man of about twenty, wearing an Army-green cardigan over a black T-shirt and crisp, new-looking blue jeans. He had curly brown hair, a suspicious set to his blue eyes, and an honest-to-god lollipop stick poking out of his mouth.

The greeting Clint had had ready died on his lips and he said, somewhat hopelessly, "I'm looking for Phil?"

The young man looked Clint over with obvious attention to detail before shoving the door open further with his hip and asking—accusing, honestly—"You Clint?"

Clint nodded, and then his eyes widened as the penny dropped. "Fitz?"

With a grunt that seemed like it was supposed to be assent, Fitz moved the lollipop to his other cheek and said, "Thought you'd be older."

"Thought you'd be younger," Clint shot back unthinkingly, though he caught himself before adding, "and less Scottish."

"Nice dog. You're not getting your chairs back." With that, Fitz turned and walked back up the entry hall, basically dropping the door on Clint.

The door reopened seconds later, and now Clint faced a harried and mortified Phil. He was wearing black-rimmed glasses that framed his face perfectly and a thin, soft-looking dove gray sweater that clung deliciously to the muscles Clint'd seen hinted at the day they met. Any thoughts about Phil's surly Scottish son and his own general bad fit for the neighborhood flew clean out of his head. "Clint, I am _so sorry_ about that," Phil said as he held open the door so Clint and Lucky could step inside.

Clint stayed in the hallway, though Lucky eagerly sniffed Phil's hand when he held it out. "Lucky, behave. Look, if this is a bad time—"

Phil's mouth twisted. "Unless you want to come back when he's thirty, they're kind of _all_ bad times right now."

Clint laughed and stepped inside. "I gotta admit: when you said you had kids, I expected, um, _kids_."

"Oh. No. Well, Daisy's fifteen. Fitz and Jemma are twenty." Phil raised his voice and turned his head up the hall as he added, "They just _act_ like they're ten." If anyone responded, Clint didn't hear. "Let me take your jacket. We're through here."

"Through here" meant up a short entry hall and through an archway into an enormous open plan living room/kitchen area. Clint had had apartments smaller than this room. A huge picture window dominated the front wall, offering a charming view of a small park across the street.

The carpets were a rich, dark brown that went nicely with Clint's old living room set—and the _nothing else_ that was in the room. A flat-screen TV hung on the wall to Clint's right, but that was _it_. No end tables, no lamps, no plant stands, no _life_. "How long have you lived here?" Clint asked.

"Four months," Phil said, and Clint knew he was doing a terrible job of hiding his dismay.

"But where's your... _everything_?" A _lot_ of snickering burst out, and Clint figured it was time to stop ignoring the other people in the room.

As expected, Fitz sat in one of the recliners. Given the number of empty chip bags and soda cans surrounding it, that was _his_ recliner.

Two young women lounged on the couch, their feet periodically poking each other in the join of the "L." They were both tall and slim with long dark hair, but that was where the resemblance ended. The older one, who had to be Jemma, wore a thin sweater of black, white, and gray blocks. The younger one was wearing a baggy "Clinton '92" campaign t-shirt (had she even been _alive_ then?) under a sky-blue hoodie and appeared to be scarfing down Lucky Charms out of an enormous Captain America mug.

"So," Phil said, coming to stand, warm and solid, beside Clint, "meet the lights of my life. You've already experienced Fitz's gracious hospitality—" Fitz grimaced. "That's Daisy eating me out of house and home and Jemma _pretending_ to be the mature one." Clint laughed. Beneath the teasing words, abundant love was obvious in Phil's tone. "Kids, this is Clint."

"And Lucky," Clint said.

"Hello, Cute Craigslist Furniture Guy and His Cute Dog!" Daisy slurred around an enormous mouthful, grinning widely to show off mashed marshmallow bits.

"Daisy," Phil groaned. Clint laughed harder and waved.

"Thank you so much for the furniture," Jemma said, and there went any thoughts Clint'd had about her and Fitz being twins, or biologically related at all, unless he was looking at a dramatic "separated at birth" story. "Although our father considers 'secret mob hangout' a viable aesthetic, my bum assures me that it is not. This couch is a far superior alternative."

"And Fitz would totally marry that recliner if it was legal," Daisy added.

"The Republicans did warn us it'd be a slippery slope," Phil said as he settled into the other recliner.

Clint coughed. He jerked his thumb toward the kitchen/dining area. "I'm going to work on my report. Thanks again for letting me do this. All of you."

Phil and Jemma smiled. Daisy gave him a thumbs up. Fitz scowled a little less, which Clint chose to count as a win.

"Can Lucky stay with us?" Daisy asked.

"If you don't mind him sitting on the couch, because he _will not_ stay on the floor."

Daisy and Jemma looked at Phil, who nodded.

"Lucky." When the dog looked over, Clint gave him the signal for "up," and he jumped onto the couch, settling between Daisy and Jemma's feet. "Be good," Clint said, as if he'd _ever_ listened to that command.

Back at the familiar table, which wobbled but at least didn't feel like it was going to pitch his ass to the floor if he shifted wrong, Clint moved quickly through the eval. He kept half an ear on the conversation in the living room, which started with Fitz and Jemma's upcoming finals and then moved on to Daisy's impending driver's ed class, which the others were dreading. That segued into a debate about someone named Lola, which grew so loud so quickly that Clint took out his hearing aids. It was a bad habit, but it was his best option for getting his work done.

Clint got so wrapped up in the familiar rhythm of the eval that he didn't realize someone else had come into his space until a hand landed on his shoulder. He jumped, and his pen skittered across the page, leaving a long blue streak. "Aw, ink, no," he muttered, rubbing the line with the side of his hand in a futile attempt to erase it. He sighed and looked up to see who had snuck up on him and what they wanted.

"Sorry, sorry!" Daisy was saying, hands held up. "Didn't mean to startle you!" At least Clint thought that was what she was saying. Speechreading was as much art as science. Clint motioned for her to wait and put the hearing aids back in. Her expression shifted subtly, like something had clicked into place for her. "Guess that's why you didn't answer when I said your name."

"Sorry," Clint said, stretching. "I get wrapped up in my work."

"Yeah," Daisy said, leaning over to peer at his forms, "compliance audit evaluations sure are riveting."

And, _wow_. Apparently all he'd needed to feel like an adult was a reminder of how old he seemed to a teenager.

"Compliance with what?" she asked. Clint couldn't tell if she was actually interested, or if her parents had just instilled the virtue of respecting her elders.

"The ADA. Businesses hire my firm to help them with accessibility problems. Sometimes they hire us in the design and build phases so they don't have accessibility problems in the first place, but that's rare."

"Huh," she said. Which he supposed still could've been either interested or polite. "Well, I came to say goodnight."

Clint startled and looked at his phone. When had it gotten to be ten? "Goodnight, Daisy. It was nice to meet you."

"Yeah, you, too. Good to meet the man behind the furniture."

After she wandered out of the kitchen, Clint jammed his report ( _so close_ to done) into his satchel and went into the living room. Phil was alone, stretched out in his recliner with an enormous book about U.S.-China trade agreements. His glasses were askew, and Clint wanted to crawl into his lap and _lick him_. Clint opened his mouth, but before he could do something stupid, Jemma and Fitz tumbled into the room wearing their jackets. Fitz had a backpack over one shoulder, while Jemma carried Clint's satchel's trendier cousin.

"Headed out?" Clint asked.

Jemma nodded. "We have to catch a bus, and it’s a bit of a ride back to our place."

"Every morning from April through October, Jemma gets up at 5:30 to row on the Potomac," Phil said, pride obvious in his voice.

"Because she's a masochist," Fitz added.

"The cultivation of regular habits is one of the cornerstones of success, Fitz," Jemma said primly.

"Clint," Phil said, ignoring his children's squabbling, "how do you feel about football?"

Fitz and Jemma stilled as though the fate of the universe hung in Clint's answer. He eyed them warily. "American or world?"

" _Hah_!" Fitz crowed.

"American," Phil said, shooting Fitz a glare that failed to quell him.

Clint shrugged. "I don't care about the game, but I like watching with other people."

"Fitz and Daisy come over most Sundays to watch whatever's on," Phil said. "You're welcome to join us."

"Oh. Uh..." Clint looked to the side and scratched the back of his neck. He'd love nothing better, but the guys would show up at _his_ place demanding snacks and cuddles from Lucky, and he couldn't leave them there to do that _without him_. Could he?

"It's okay to say no," Phil said hurriedly. "I just thought..." He trailed off, looking every bit as sheepish as Clint felt.

"No!" Clint said quickly. "It's just that, uh—my friends come to my place for the games, and—"

"Oh! Oh, right. Well, they're welcome, too."

Clint looked around and stifled a hysterical laugh. "Where would you _put_ them?"

Phil's shoulders slumped. "Oh. Right."

"Wow," Fitz said, making no effort to be quiet. "This is _really_ painful."

"Tell me about it," Jemma replied. Her voice was almost awed.

"Weren't you two leaving?" Phil asked over his shoulder.

"Yes, right, okay." Fitz and Jemma chivvied each other out of the living room and toward the front door. Then Fitz stuck his head around the archway. "Oi, Clint. Who's your team?"

Clint blinked. "Washington Spirit."

Fitz's grin was bright as he pointed at Clint and told his father, "Yeah, all right. He can stay." Then he yelped as Jemma yanked him toward the door with a shout of, "It was nice to meet you, Clint. You too, Lucky!"

Then Clint and Phil were alone in the living room, with Clint feeling the awkwardness to his toes. "Umm... I should be going, too. Kind of a drive home, and I have a meeting in the morning." It was his bimonthly brunch with Natasha, but woe betide him if he missed it without a _damned_ good reason—and Natasha didn't count "got distracted by a good-looking guy" as a good reason. "Thanks again for letting me use the table. It was a life-saver."

Phil shrugged. "It's your table."

"You bought it. It's your table now."

"Yeah, but—" Phil shrugged big, shoulders rising almost to his ears, and turned lightly pink. "It's not—you're welcome to come use it any time, is what I'm saying."

Clint laughed quietly. "You sure you want to make a habit of collecting strays, Phil?"

Phil snorted and waved his hand around the recently vacated living room. "Look at my kids and tell me I don't have plenty of practice with that."

"Yeah, I guess." Clint had approximately seven thousand questions about Phil's kids, his ex-wife, the boss no one liked, and _everything else about him, ever_. Now wasn't the time, though. He told Phil goodnight, collected his dog and his jacket, and drove back to his apartment with its alien architecture masquerading as furniture. And he dreamed of kind blue eyes and a family of misfits that always had room for one more.

*

Clint made up an excuse about a last-minute client meeting on Sunday and told Sam and Bucky not to come over. He told himself sternly that this was a one-time deal, took Lucky to Phil's and, after spending the first quarter attempting to be interested in the Giants vs. the Packers, spent the rest of the afternoon arguing with Fitz about U.S. versus European soccer rules.

Clint said he'd bring beer next week.

*

The second week, Fitz and Phil started arguing about the unfairness of being allowed to vote, own guns, and join the military at eighteen but not drink alcohol until twenty-one ("If I were in Scotland I'd've been drinking since I was eighteen!" he shouted. "If you were in Scotland, you'd be the cutest orphan outside a Dickens novel!" Phil shouted back, an exchange that raised far more questions than it answered).

Clint hid out in the kitchen and helped Daisy make s'mores bars. Daisy liked to narrate her life in song, usually by mangling the lyrics to older songs to fit what she was doing. Clint suspected it would be several days at least before he stopped singing about a "marshmallow grenade/the kind you make with a second-hand hoof."

He also spent the first half sending vague answers to a series of worried texts from Natasha, who thought he was sick. Because he'd told Bucky and Sam he was sick. So they wouldn't come over.

Clint spent the second half eating enough s'mores bars to nearly make himself puke and listening to Phil hold forth on the black market for Canadian alcohol during U.S. Prohibition. The kids groaned the instant Phil started in on it, clearly a familiar spiel that they didn't want to hear again, but Clint was mesmerized.

"Are you—" Clint stopped. He knew _nothing_ about Phil. Well, he knew Phil had three great kids and an ex-wife named Melinda, that he preferred lighter beers to darker ones, that he'd had his hand amputated to keep an infection from spreading, and that this was the longest he'd been in the country for over a year because he traveled extensively for work. But he didn't know what Phil's work _was_ , if he'd always lived in the area, if his parents were alive, if he had siblings, or _how_ he'd ended up with these kids. "Do you know this stuff because of your job?"

"No," Daisy said, "he knows it because he's a _giant nerd_."

" _And_ for work," Phil said mildly, ignoring Daisy. "I'm in international trade."

Clint blinked. "That's... way more glamorous than I was imagining."

"It's _not_ ," Fitz said, dropping a plate in Clint's lap as he passed. Clint stared at it blankly; it sure looked like a hunk of cheese. "White cheddar," Fitz said as he settled into his recliner. "The protein's a good, um, whatsit." He waved his hand next to his head. "Like with poison."

" _Hey_!" Daisy shouted, smacking Fitz's leg with a throw pillow. "My s'mores bars aren't _poison_."

"Antidote?" Clint offered.

Fitz nodded. "Yeah. A good antidote to the sugar into Daisy's marshmallow crack bars."

"Thanks," Clint said. He didn't call attention to Fitz's slight thawing toward him in case he made it reverse itself.

He didn't call attention to Fitz's aphasia, either. It wasn't the first time Clint had seen him flail in search of a word, and he'd also noticed how Fitz's hands sometimes shook when he tried to make them do something. He masked the aphasia better—he was good at finding synonyms or making sentences sound like they'd been about something else. But no one talked about it, and Clint was here as a guest, not a consultant. So, radical subject change it was. "You don't think Phil's job is glamorous?"

"It _would_ be," Fitz said, "if his boss weren't—"

"Enough," Phil said firmly. "No Tony-bashing." Fitz harrumphed and crossed his arms.

"Okay, who _is_ this guy?" Clint asked. "I feel like _no one_ likes him."

Daisy and Fitz stared at him and then turned on their father. "Jeez, Dad," Daisy said, "have you told him _anything_?"

Phil sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Tony Stark," he said quietly, like a shameful confession. "I work for Stark Industries."

"He's the Senior Vice President of International Operations for Stark Industries," Daisy corrected smugly.

Clint's brain whirled. He didn't know much about the structure of large corporations, but Senior Vice President of _anything_ meant Phil had more power, money, and responsibility than Clint could dream of. Now he felt even dumber for coming into Phil's home with his doofy dog and his twenty-year-old motorcycle jacket. And the furniture—"Why did you need my furniture?" he blurted.

For a minute, he felt like his body was going to collapse in on itself from the sheer weight of his mortification. Of the hundreds of questions bouncing around his head, _this_ was the one he was going to ask?

Then Phil started to laugh. It was a quiet sound, almost like a faintly vocalized smirk, but it was gentle, like the joke was on himself, not Clint, and Clint decided that any amount of mortification was worth it to get that sound out of Phil.

"Melinda took me furniture shopping. One of her friends told her where to find this fancy set—some expensive designer with a famous name. I hated it. It looked cold, and everything had weird bumps in the middle. Plus the upholstery was white. I kept hearing my mother's voice shrieking about stains."

"Grandma Coulson was _super_ shrill," Daisy added. "You do _not_ want her shrieking in your ear."

"I think that's the set I'm hiding from," Clint said.

Phil smiled. "So I thought, used furniture. Somebody vouches for that, right? And I wouldn't feel guilty the first time something spilled on it."

"Well, I don't know if I'd go so far as to _vouch_ for it," Clint joked.

"Seriously?" Phil asked. "This is exactly what we were looking for."

"I really do want to marry this chair," Fitz said.

"And the butt groove in the couch is _perfect_ ," Daisy added, wriggling to prove her point.

"I'll tell Bucky you approve of his butt groove," Clint said, grinning.

"Plus," Phil said, "I like that used furniture has stories." His gaze softened. Clint swallowed. "Now that I know you, I especially like that they're _your_ stories."

"Are they _flirting_?" Daisy whispered.

"Shh!" Fitz hissed. "The car's on fire, and I can't look away."

Barely aware of the snark-fest behind them, Clint stared into Phil's eyes. There was so much here to like, in this man and his family of misfit toys. They would make a place for him; he knew it. They already had, in their way. But more could be his for the taking. More of Phil's time and attention, more of his body and heart. But every time Clint thought of taking it, his vision went watery and his heart skipped a worrying beat.

He needed to get away and regroup. He had to make sure that if he asked Phil out, demanded that space carved out of Phil's life, it was because he wanted _Phil_ , not because he missed having a family.

He did the only thing he could think of: he stayed until the end of the game, and then he took his dog and his beer, said he'd see everyone next week, and fled.

*

**_September 2009_**

The third week he was legitimately in Topeka. On a legitimate job.

That he would ordinarily have farmed out to one of the other consultants.

*

The fourth week saw him opening his door to Bucky and Sam like he had for years, like his apartment hadn't begun a radical alteration since the last time they were here. Like his _life_ hadn't undergone a radical alteration since the last time they were here.

A delusion Bucky shattered the instant he walked through the door. "The fuck is that, Barton?"

" _That_ ," Clint said with a snort, "is the furniture your girlfriend picked out while I was in Orlando."

Sam whistled. "What'd you do to piss her off this time?"

"Too many things to remember or count," Clint admitted.

"No, it's—" Bucky huffed and shook his head. "Believe it or not, she's trying to help."

"Help with what?" Sam asked incredulously. "Getting in touch with his inner masochist?"

Bucky flipped him off. "Look, she said—okay, you know what? Not my job. If you want to know, talk to her. Can we watch the game?"

They tried. With Bucky sprawled across the couch, Sam and Clint on the flanking chairs, and Lucky curled up at Clint's feet, unwilling to brave the furniture again, they made it through the first quarter before Bucky said, "Am I about to fall off this thing?"

"Is there a weird bump under my ass?" Sam asked.

Clint sighed and leaned down to pet Lucky and buy time. "Why do you think I haven't had you over in a month? This is not sitting furniture."

Bucky grimaced as he shifted around, looking for a comfortable position that didn't exist. "Well, whatever, I can't sit on this for the rest of the game."

"You know," Clint said, looking up at him wryly, "we don't _have to_ do this at my place every week. You've got an apartment."

"Yeah, but my apartment is also Nat's apartment. If you want to explain to her why we're not at your place, be my guest."

Clint's mouth twisted. Yeah, okay, he'd have to tell Natasha the truth about the furniture someday, but he didn't want that day to be _today._ "What about you, Sam? You have a better TV anyway."

"No, come on, now," Sam said, waving his hands. "I promised Steve he could work in the living room while I'm gone. No interruptions."

"Aaaagh!" Clint flopped back in his chair—well, he attempted to flop as best he could given the chair's strange and ergonomically unfriendly design. "Why doesn't he draw at his place?"

Sam made a "search me" face. "No idea. Says I have better light."

" _Please_ let's not interrupt Steve," Bucky begged. "Since he started working at Sam's, his productivity's through the roof. Hasn't missed a deadline in two months. Which means Nat's in a better mood. Which means _I'm_ in a better mood."

Clint curled his lip. "All four of you make me sick." He rubbed his hands over his face. "Okay. I didn't want to do this today, but we have one other option."

"Chop chop, then, buddy," Bucky commanded imperiously from the couch. "I'd like my butt in a better place by the second half kickoff."

Clint sighed and pulled out his phone.

 **TO PJ:** you got room for a couple extra today?

 **FROM PJ:** We can always make room for you.

Clint's heart did not go wonky at that. It _didn't_. He pocketed his phone and levered out of his chair. Lucky jumped to his feet, looking at Clint with round, hopeful eyes. "Come on, doofus, let's go to Phil's."

"Oooh," Sam said as he stood, as well, "who's Phil?"

"A very nice man who deserves so much better than we're about to inflict on him," Clint said as he walked toward the kitchen to grab beer. "I'm leaving in three, and I _will_ leave without you." He whistled for Lucky and pretended he didn't see Sam and Bucky raising their eyebrows behind him.

*

They weren't even off the stairs on Phil's floor when Lucky's ears perked up, and he went galumphing down the hall to pant excitedly in front of the door. A few steps later they heard it: a laughing shriek and a yell of, "Oh my god get _off me_ , haggisbreath!"

Clint grinned sheepishly. "So, this is the place."

Clint knocked, and they were immediately treated to a bellowing cry of, "CLINT!!!" and a stampede of feet that turned out, when the door flew open seconds later, to be just Daisy. "Clint! Hi, Clint!" she hollered, her hands rubbing Lucky's head as he leapt joyfully around her legs. She peered into the hallway and blinked. "And Clint's hot friends."

Bucky turned redder than an overripe tomato, and if Sam's eyes grew any wider, he wouldn't have room for the rest of his face. Clint laughed. "Daisy, this is Sam and Bucky. Both very much taken. Guys, this is Daisy. Very much fifteen."

"Ah," the guys said, and Clint grinned. They had younger sisters; they got it.

"You should come in and protect me from Fitz," Daisy said.

"You started it!" Fitz yelled from deeper into the apartment.

" _Don't get your tartan in a twist, twit_!" she yelled back.

They followed Daisy into the living room. Fitz was out of his recliner for once, though Clint didn't realize it until Fitz jumped on Daisy from behind a tall potted plant that hadn't been there last time Clint came around.

As they chased each other around the living room like kids half their age, Phil came out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on his jeans and sighing wearily. "I swear we raised them as actual human beings, not hyenas."

"Phil, it's fine," Clint said, laughing. He made introductions, and Sam and Bucky behaved like gentlemen, but there was no missing the knowing looks they gave him after they'd shaken Phil's hand. It was time Clint started looking for a new group of friends—this one knew him too well.

Then Sam and Bucky turned toward the living room, and—"Barton, what the hell?" Sam demanded. "This is _your_ busted-ass furniture."

"Ah, no, it's Phil's now. He bought it fair and square."

Sam looked at Phil and made a clucking sound against the roof of his mouth. "And I was all set to like you, man."

Phil laughed. Daisy and Fitz laughed harder.

Clint spotted the problem when he went to sit down. Fitz was back in his recliner—and Daisy was in the other. That left the couch for the rest of them. And it made sense for Sam and Bucky, who didn't know Phil, to take one side of the L and leave the other side for Clint, who _did_ know Phil. Clint was happy to do that. Completely happy. And filled with dread.

Clint sat near the join of the couch next to Sam, who was trying to make Bucky stop poking him in the side. Since Bucky was poking him with his prosthetic arm, nothing Sam was doing had the slightest effect. After a moment's dithering, Phil sat gingerly beside Clint, leaving as much space between them as the confines of the couch allowed. Clint patted the cushion between them for Lucky, but the traitor settled in the join instead, nose on Sam's thigh, tail lazily thumping against Clint's chest, leg, and arm.

The third quarter was a nightmare. Clint was constantly, achingly aware of Phil beside him. The warmth rolling off him, the way he slowly relaxed into the cushions, his pissy snort when he disagreed with a call. So far, Clint hadn't found a single thing about Phil that he didn’t like, which maybe said more about Clint than about Phil.

By the start of the fourth quarter, Clint had relaxed enough that he didn't feel like he had to be constantly on alert. He and Phil were sitting next to each other. The occasional brush or bump seemed inevitable. He refused to stress about it.

The game ended with the Seahawks just eking out a win over the Bears and Clint just maintaining a respectable distance from Phil, who was warm and soft and wearing his damned glasses again while he flipped through the international headlines in the day's _New York Times_.

He seemed engrossed in his reading and not paying attention to anyone else. But the instant Bucky reached for another beer, Phil snapped his paper closed and pulled off his glasses. "Ordinarily you'd be welcome to stay as long as you like," he said, "but Daisy has an early appointment tomorrow, and we have a lot to do before bed."

Before Clint could respond, Daisy's exuberant and not-that-great singing voice filled the space with—well, the tune was The Beatles' "Yesterday," but the words were... unique.

" _Puberty!_  
_You've been blocked from taking over me!_  
_Thank you, shrink who read the DSM-V_  
_And diagnosed my GID!"_

" _Daisy_ ," Fitz sighed. "I'd finally gotten that bloody song out of my head from the _last_ time you sang it!" He wrinkled his nose. "And I still don't think the third line scans."

"Well, ex _cuse_ me, Bernie Taupin," Daisy huffed.

Fitz stared at her. " _Bernie Taupin_? Are you transgenerational, too?"

"Kids," Phil said mildly. He smiled wearily at Clint. "Two hundred wasn't much for all this furniture. I could offer you two slightly used children. Almost as good as new."

"You don't want that one," Daisy said, pointing at Fitz. "He does differential calculus in his sleep."

"Oh, yeah?" Fitz shot back. "Well, _you_ snore like a band saw. A rusty one."

"Okay, so, we're gonna head out," Clint said as he, Bucky, and Sam backed slowly toward the door and away from the impending sibling implosion. "Same time next week?"

"Please do," Phil said. They smiled at each other, and Clint felt a fizzy rush of happiness bubble through his body.

He waved at Daisy and Fitz, who ignored him because Daisy was attempting to jump onto Fitz's back and Fitz was trying to avoid that at all costs, but he was sure the sentiment was there.

*

On Wednesday, Clint put his finger on what had been bothering him about the scenario.

 **TO PJ:** Daisy doesn't know my friends  
**TO PJ:** i mean, not really

 **FROM PJ:** she knows you _  
_**FROM PJ:** she trusts you

There it was, laid out starkly on the screen, and it punched the air out of Clint's lungs.

He must've delayed too long; the dots blinked to signal that Phil was typing, and then Clint read:

 **FROM PJ:** Is that trust misplaced?

Wow. Clint had to ask Phil for lessons in how to convey that "is there a problem here?" tone via text.

 **TO PJ:** I'm just not used to it

 **FROM PJ:** You will be.

Clint spent a long time staring at his phone, trying to figure out what that meant.

_*_

Sunday of the fifth week dawned with tall dark clouds and sharp breezes. Clint wrapped up in the purple hoodie Natasha had tried to throw out at least twice and drank his coffee scalding hot just to have the warmth. Pietro called to check in from L.A., gushing about palm trees and sun-drenched skies while Clint made faces at the phone. _Because he was a grownup._

The clouds opened up just before kickoff, and he thought of calling Phil and saying he couldn't make it, to avoid going out in the storm. But sitting here alone, when Phil's apartment had better places to sit, and possibly something disgustingly sugary concoction from Daisy, and _Phil_ , seemed like more of a punishment than getting wet.

Of course, getting into the car with Lucky after he'd spent five rapturous minutes rolling around in mud puddles was a special punishment that Clint hadn't banked on.

When Clint knocked on Phil's door, soaking wet, smelling of wet dog, and out of sorts with the world, he wasn't expecting Bucky to open it. He stood in the hall, blinking in confusion, barely registering when Lucky slipped his grip and dashed inside.

"Where the hell've you been, man?" Bucky asked as Clint entered the apartment.

"What are you doing here?" Clint asked dazedly.

"Watching the game," Bucky said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Sam, too?"

"Duh."

 _Duh_. Everyone loved Phil's apartment and Phil's family and Phil's furniture and _Phil_. Clint needed to stop thinking he was special.

The afternoon was weirdly quiet. Phil explained that Melinda had come back from "whatever terrifying thing she was doing in Darfur last month" (his exact words) and dragged Daisy and Jemma out for mother-daughter bonding time.

"Could be shoe shopping," Fitz mused. "Could be target practice. Never know with those three."

Halfway into the second quarter, Bucky's phone buzzed with an incoming text. He glanced down at it and froze, face pale.

"You okay, buddy?" Sam asked.

"Nat knows we're not at Clint's place."

Clint leaned forward. "You sure?"

Bucky turned his phone so Clint could see Natasha's text, which read,  _Steve & I are at Clint's. Where are you? _ "Pretty sure."

Clint leaned back and rubbed his face. "Crap."

"What do you think?" Bucky asked. "Should I give her the address?"

"If she's with Steve, she has it," Sam said. Bucky and Clint turned to stare at him.  "What? Okay, listen. One, nobody told me it was some big secret. Two, I know you and Natasha are into kinky spy role play shit, but Steve and me? We tell each other things. Three... man." He shook his head at Bucky. "You know better than anyone. He needs to know where his people are."

"Everything okay?" Phil asked softly.

Clint gave him a wan smile. "It's fine. Just—now's a good time to decide if you want Steven Grant Rogers and Natalia Romanova seeing the framed Captain America covers in your hallway."

If Clint had Natasha's way with words, he could describe Phil's expression. If he had Steve's way with form and line, he could draw it. As it was, he could only be grateful for the speed with which Fitz pulled out his camera, took a picture of his father's face, and crowed, "Daisy is going to be _so mad_ that she's missing this!"

"The... the 'Nat and Steve' you talk about—that's _them_?" The guys nodded sheepishly. "I have every cover," Phil said, voice quiet with awe. "Even the convention-only variants. The coming-out issue alone..." He trailed off and looked at Clint helplessly.

Clint nodded. He knew. Every queer nerd in America knew about Captain America's place in the history of queer media representation. Less than four months after the Stonewall riots, he'd been the first major superhero to have a story arc where he'd actively aided a gay person (albeit a closeted one with a lot of internalized homophobia), who'd been portrayed in a sympathetic (if period-stereotyped) light.

Forty-five years later, when Steve and Natasha went into negotiations around their possible run of Captain America comics, the one that was supposed to revitalize the faded hero, one of the only points they'd been unyielding on was that Jeff Mace, the man in the cowl, _would_ be openly bisexual, and he _would_ have a relationship with another man that would be as healthy and stable as a superhero could get. When that man turned out to be the grandson of the man Mace helped in '69, the readership had, as Pietro put it, "flipped its shit." A new generation of queer readers hooked—and an older generation _re_ hooked—in a single issue.

Clint punched Phil's knee lightly. "Tell them. They'll appreciate it."

When Steve and Natasha showed up forty-five minutes later, Phil went to the door himself. When he opened it, Natasha tried to kill him with her glare while Steve peered past him and said, "Hi, I'm Steve. Do you have our menfolk?"

Ignoring Sam's laughter and Bucky's embarrassed grumbling, Phil took first Natasha's and then Steve's hands in his own, looked each of them in the eye with disarming intensity, and said, " _Thank you_." Nothing else was said on the topic for the rest of the day.

*

When Natasha saw Phil's furniture and figured out why Clint had started coming here, she clicked her tongue and said, " _Ptichka._ You could've told me."

"I don't know how you thought that was furniture I'd like, Nat," he admitted.

"You wanted to be more 'adult.' That is very adult furniture."

Ultimately, she took it for her half of the studio she and Steve shared. Clint couldn't imagine sitting there for hours on end to write, but Natasha claimed it helped her productivity, so who was he to argue?

Clint got new furniture, eventually. Phil's pirate friend Nick helped him pick it out. Their shopping trip was three of the weirdest, most awkward hours of Clint's life, but Nick turned out to have _unparalleled_ tastes in furniture. Between the two of them, they found replacement living room and dining sets that filled his apartment space perfectly. Of course, when Clint moved out of the apartment—but no. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

*

Sam, Clint, and Bucky went back the sixth and seventh weeks, though Phil was in Beirut on business. It was weird, being in Phil's apartment _without Phil_ , but the kids assured him they did it all the time, and Clint forced himself to relax. He figured that even if they were lying, _they_ were the ones who had to face Phil's wrath if they weren't supposed to be there.

*

**_October 2009_**

On the eighth week, Clint got a phone call.

"May I speak to Mr. Clinton Barton, please?" It was an unfamiliar woman's voice with the faintest hint of an accent. It had to be a call for Hawkeye Compliance. No one who called his personal number called him "Mr. Clinton Barton, please." He checked his phone again—no, this was his personal line.

"This is Clint."

"Mr. Barton, I'm calling from Míngtiān Mandarin Immersion Academy. Daisy Coulson-May was injured during a theater rehearsal, and we cannot get in touch with her parents or General Fury. She requested that we contact you."

 _General_ Fury? Crap, no wonder Nick was so damned intimidating.

Then the woman's words hit him. _Daisy had been injured_.

Melinda would get back from Lagos tomorrow evening, while Phil's "brief but unavoidable run to Oslo" had started yesterday morning. Fitz and Jemma didn't have a car. And Nick— _General Fury for fuck's sake_ —well, Clint was probably better off not knowing where that guy was.

"Give me the address, please," he said. "I'm on my way."

When Clint hurried into the school's quiet front office and asked for Daisy, he was instead directed toward a blue drop cloth hanging from the ceiling. A smiling young woman in a navy pencil skirt and white blouse took his picture with her phone.

Clint blinked away the glare from the unnecessary flash. "What, uh, okay, _what_?"

The woman laughed. "We were able to contact Mr. Coulson in Oslo. He confirmed that Clinton Barton is authorized to take Daisy out of school. Now we have to confirm that _you_ are Clinton Barton." The woman's phone vibrated. She looked at it and smiled. "Mr. Coulson has confirmed you, Mr. Barton. The nurse's station is through this door, all the way back and to the left." She handed Clint a slip of paper. "Give this to the nurse, and he'll release Daisy to leave with you."

Clint thanked her and hurried up the hall. He identified the nurse's station by the sound of Daisy's voice bubbling out, loud and enthusiastic. Clint had no idea what she was saying, since it was in Mandarin, but she didn't sound mortally wounded.

Clint knocked once on the door and then pushed it open. "Daisy?"

Daisy jumped out of the chair she'd been sitting in and bounded over. "Clint!" she cheered. "My knight in shining armor!" She glared at him. "Where's your armor, bub?"

Clint laughed and ruffled her hair, since he wasn't sure where she was hurt. He held his paper out to the nurse, a middle-aged man who was eyeing him with deep suspicion. "Uh, hi," Clint said. "I'm Clint. I'm a friend of Phil's. Uh, Mr. Coulson."

If anything, that made the nurse look _more_ like someone had pissed in his Wheaties. He studied the paper, and a moue of distaste crossed his features. "I suppose everything is in order," he said grudgingly.

"Great, thanks!" Daisy grabbed a bulging green backpack off the chair and hefted it onto her shoulder. She grinned up at Clint, who had somehow never noticed how small she was. "So my arm's probably broken. Wanna take me to the ER?"

Clint blinked. When he'd pictured coming to get Daisy, it'd ended with her on Phil's couch, icing a black eye or swabbing Neosporin onto cuts. Not a trip to the ER. "Uh… shouldn't an actual relative do that?"

Daisy threw her nonbroken hand in the air. "Find me a relative and I'll ask!"

"I mean—" Clint scratched the back of his neck. Getting Daisy excused from school was one thing. Acting in some sort of adult fashion toward her in a medical setting was something else entirely. "Doesn't your dad have cousins he's close to?"

"Yeah," Daisy said with an eye roll that must've hurt, "in _Chicago_."

Crap. Okay, fine. Clint sighed and slid the backpack off Daisy’s shoulder. "Okay. Let's go. What's the closest hospital?"

"Just don't take me to St. Mary's. They're transphobic dickfaces who'll misgender me all over the place and encourage me to talk to a priest about my 'difficulty.' And they will _not_ be talking about my arm."

"Jesus," Clint muttered.

In the ER at Virginia Hospital Center, Clint held the intake form on a clipboard in his lap and recorded the information Daisy dictated to him. He felt an increasing mix of bemusement and bewilderment as she answered "Unknown" to every family medical history question.

"You know what?" she finally growled, "it's 'Unknown' for all of them. God, this sucks. It's _a broken arm_!" she called to the room at large before slumping in her chair and lowering her voice again. "Who cares if my maternal great-grandmother ever had a toenail fungus?" Clint tried to look noncommittal, but he must've given something away. "What?" Daisy asked sharply.

"Nothing," Clint said quickly. "Just surprised you don't know this stuff. Your dad seems like the type to want you to know."

"Trust me," Daisy said, rolling her eyes. "I know more about the Coulson and May family histories than I could ever want to. My bio family? Not so much."

Clint tried to keep his jaw from dropping. From the look on Daisy's face, he failed.

"You didn't know, did you?" she asked, incredulity dripping from every word. "You thought Phil and Melinda were my biological parents!"

"In my defense," Clint said, while some corner of his brain kicked him and told him to shut up, "I've seen pictures of the three of you. You look like you could be theirs."

"OMG white people," Daisy huffed, which, okay, fair. "Nope, I was the sad-eyed but determined orphan girl in Shanghai, being raised by American missionaries who kept calling me by a boy's name that felt weird and spanking me with a paddle when I used the 'wrong' bathroom. Until Phil and Melinda came and whisked me away to the land of opportunity, consumerism, and HRT." Her smile was bleak as she added, "What every plucky orphan dreams of, right?" She jerked and stared at him with wide eyes. " _Please_ tell me you figured out about Jemma and Fitz."

Clint rolled his eyes. " _Yes_ , I figured out about them. The accents kind of gave them away."

To Clint's surprise, Daisy's eyes widened further. "The _accents_? Not the—know what that sound is, Clint? That's Gregor Mendel crying into his ghostly pea soup."

Clint pursed his lips and breathed out slowly through his nose. "You know, Daisy," he said as calmly as he could manage, "not every plucky orphan's story ends with a well-off family and enrollment in a fancy private immersion school. Some of us made do with overstressed, underpaid public school teachers until we dropped out to join the circus. Some of us consider ourselves _lucky_ to have gotten our GEDs at nineteen. So maybe you wanna dial down your attitude a little?"

Daisy instantly withdrew, eyes downcast. "Sorry," she said softly.

"Thanks."

"They don't even have the same last names," she added, sounding like she knew damned well she shouldn't but unable to resist.

Clint bristled. "What?"

"Fitz. Simmons."

"Fitz's last name is Simmons?"

"No, _Jemma_ 's last name is Simmons. Fitz's last name is Fitz."

They'd fallen into some strange alternate dimension. Run by Abbott and Costello. "Fitz Fitz?"

Daisy giggled. "No, Fitz is his last name. He goes by it because he hates his first name."

"Which is?"

"Which iiiis—something I'm not going to tell you, because _he_ hates having people know, and _I_ hate wet willies."

Clint shuddered. "Fair enough." Barney had been partial to wet willies in their youth. Clint understood Daisy's position on the matter.

They sat in the waiting room for another half hour, picking away at the awkward silence with stupid jokes and cat videos. By the time Daisy was called into an exam room, things felt comfortable between them again.

When Daisy stood and Clint didn't, she looked at him with a confused squint. "You coming?"

He squinted back. "You want me to? Totally up to you."

Her eyes widened. "You'd let me go back on my own?"

He shrugged. "I'm not your parent, and you're—well, not an adult, but old enough to know your own mind. If you need me, call, or have someone come get me. Otherwise, I'm fine out here."

He didn't expect Daisy to throw herself at him in an engulfing hug. But he didn't mind when she did.

*

Sporting a bright yellow cast and doped to the gills on painkillers, Daisy was all sorts of entertaining to get home—especially since "home" at the moment turned out to be _Melinda's_ home, a Colonial-style mini-mansion two miles and a thousand life choices from Phil's apartment.

Clint knew Daisy ought to be in bed, but the thought of getting her up the truly daunting number of stairs made a sad whimper bubble up in his throat, so he had her direct him to the nearest couch and settled her onto it with a can of Coke and a bag of green grapes he found in the fridge.

He sat at the other end of the couch, clicked on the TV, and found the game, because it was Sunday, and why mess with tradition? He barely noticed when he started nodding off near the end of the third quarter. By fourth quarter kickoff, he and Daisy were sound asleep.

*

The vibration of Clint's phone against his leg startled him into wakefulness. He flailed around trying to rescue it from his pocket and pitched off the couch onto the floor. "Damn it." Muffled laughter above him told him that Daisy was awake, so at least he didn't have to worry about being quiet.

Clint finally worked his phone free and grinned when he saw who was calling. "Hey, Phil," he said. He looked around; he wasn't sure how long he'd slept, but judging by the depth of shadow around the room, it was around six in the evening.

"Clint? Thank god. Daisy's not answering her phone. Is she okay?"

"Hey, whoa, yeah. She's all right. Here—let me put you on speaker." Clint switched to speaker and set the phone on the coffee table. Then he leaned over and flicked on a lamp. Now that he was more awake, he realized that any one couch, chair, or table in this room cost more than all his furniture combined. He couldn't tell if they were real antiques or had been made to look that way, but they were the kind of pieces people handed down to their children and their children's children. If the Coulson-Mays weren't old money, they were new money that had spent enough time around old money to know how to keep it classy. Clint squirmed, feeling outclassed and out of place in a way he never did at Phil's.

"Dad!" Daisy caroled, leaning toward the phone. "How's Oslo?"

"Beautiful and cold," Phil said. "What happened to you?"

"Arlington's great. We had rain yesterday, but today was sunny."

"Daisy," Phil said, his tone clipped, "it's midnight. I had a full day of negotiations between cranky Kenyans, crankier Norwegians, and Tony Stark. I will do it again in eight hours. You can guess how it's going."

Daisy's face fell, and she picked at the end of her cast with her other hand. "Sorry, Dad. I broke my arm. Simple break; doc says it should heal fast. Got a pretty sick cast out of it, too."

"Don't listen to her," Clint said. "It's _yellow_." Daisy stuck out her tongue at him.

"What happened?" Phil asked. "Be precise."

"I fell off the set."

"Mm-hmm."

Daisy sighed. "Because I was arguing with Kate."

"Oh, Daisy," Phil sighed.

"I couldn't help it, Dad! She said Chris Martin can't sing!"

Clint stared at Daisy. Daisy glared back.

"Were _you_ okay, Clint?" Phil asked. "No one gave you a hard time at the hospital?"

"The hospital staff was great. The _school_ , though. I don't think the nurse likes me much."

" _Duh_ ," Daisy said. "Mr. Wing's had a crush on Dad for _ages_. Of _course_ he doesn't like Dad's new boo."

The silence was _tremendous._ "Daisy," Clint finally choked out.

"What?" She looked between Clint and the phone, like she could convey her scorn to her father via telecom. "Is it supposed to be a _secret_? We all know. Even _Jemma_ knows, and she never comes to football because she secretly hates fun."

"It—no— _no_ , Daisy. It's not a _secret_ because it's not... not a _thing_!"

"Daisy," Phil said, and Clint wouldn't call himself an expert in Phil's tones of voice, but he sounded like he was barely holding onto his calm. "Clint and I aren't dating."

Daisy stared at Clint with her jaw dropped. Then she looked at the phone again. "Holy shit.”

"Daisy."

"You believe that, don't you? I mean, you two actually believe you're not together."

"We believe it because it's true!" Clint protested, realizing as he did that denials might make her _more_ convinced that she was right.

Sure enough, Daisy sat up straighter and glared harder. "You're at Dad's apartment _every week_ you're in town—even if he's not! I've seen you more in the last two months than I've seen my _mom_. Dad authorized you to take me out of school! _Out of school_! Even his assistant doesn't have that permission, and he steals Dad's used Kleenexes to have a piece of him near."

" _Daisy_ ," Phil said sharply.

"And you're _crazy_ if you think we haven't seen the way you two look at each other. Fitz covered my eyes once! Said teenagers shouldn't be exposed to that much _pining_."

 _Oh, crap_ , Clint thought. _Busted._ He'd known he couldn't hide forever. But she was wrong about Phil, no matter how much he might want to believe her. "Daisy," he said gently, "we're not—we _don't_ —Phil? A little help?"

"Daisy," Phil said, voice flat and constricted, "go to your room."

Daisy jumped to her feet. "What? _Why_?"

"Because I said so," Phil said implacably.

"You're in _Oslo_ ," she snapped. "You can't make me!"

"Do you want to go to Kate's sleepover?"

Daisy paled, and her eyes bugged out. "You _wouldn't_."

"I would. And I would be sure your mother knew why. Clint, please make sure Daisy actually goes to her room."

"I am _not_ getting involved in disciplining your kids, Coulson!"

"No need," Daisy snarled, a textbook illustration of "surly teenager." "I'm going." She stomped out of the room.

Clint waited five seconds and then crossed to the doorway. He stuck his head around and whispered, "Boo!" Daisy shrieked and ran up the stairs.

Clint went back to the couch and sat down. He picked up the phone and took it off speaker. "Okay. She's gone."

Phil sighed. "That was an abuse of authority, and I'll pay for it later. But I can't have her in the room when we do this."

"Do _what_?" Clint felt a tendril of dread and uncertainty creeping into his chest.

Phil sighed quietly. With the phone pressed to his ear, it was a strangely intimate sound. "She's not wrong. About the way I look at you."

"Phil." For one perfect, suspended moment, everything that had gone wrong in the life of Clint Barton swept away. He was an empty space, buzzing with possibility, eager for the next rush, the next opportunity, even the next mistake, because it would be a _different_ Clint Barton who made it, one who had a slate wiped clean and a past left behind. " _Jesus_ , Phil."

It was bullshit, of course. No confession of ardor could undo someone's history. His past mistakes, his old scars, inside and out, that he hadn't let Phil see, came rushing back. But he felt lighter. Like maybe some of the doubt and self-deprecation that had left him had stayed away.

He was so busy having his moment that he almost missed Phil's one quiet word: "You?"

Clint gripped the arm of the couch to ground himself and said, "Yeah, me. God, Phil, so much me."

"Good," Phil said, firmer now, more decisive. "We'll talk when I come home, but I'd like to take you out. On an _actual_ date. Say, this Saturday, if that's all right."

"Yeah, okay," Clint said. He was proud of himself for speaking coherently around his giant grin. "That sounds... really great."

"Good." For a minute it seemed like they were going to have another _moment,_ where they just, shit, Clint didn't know, _breathed in each other's essence_ or some crap. Then Phil remembered himself and said, "I hate to ask, but would you be willing to stay at the house overnight? Ordinarily I'd be fine with her staying alone for one night, but with a broken arm—"

"Yeah, no problem." Clint rubbed his eyes and pulled his phone away from his ear long enough to look at the time. It was only 6:15. Between the trip to the ER, the nap, and the shocking emotional revelations, he felt like it ought to be nearly dawn.

"It shouldn't be any inconvenience to you. She gets a ride from the mother of one of her classmates, who'll come pick her up."

"It's fine."

"Melinda might be back before then, anyway. I can't remember when her flight gets in."

"Seriously, Phil, don't worry about it."

"She might need help making her lunch—would that be okay? And whatever she tells you, we _do not_ allow her to have coffee."

" _Phil_." Clint's voice spiked. "I _said_ it was fine, and it's _fine_. I'm not inconvenienced. I'm not upset. But if you keep apologizing for your kid needing to get back to her life, I might be."

"Okay." Phil laughed shakily. "Everything seems... _bigger_ now, doesn't it? More like we could screw it up."

"Yeah, it does," Clint admitted. "But I don't think we're gonna."

Phil exhaled a quiet breath. "Thanks," he said. "Now, you can sleep on the couch if you're settled. We've all done it. But you're welcome to use the guest room."

"That'd be great," Clint said. The couch was fine, but the thought of sleeping on it all night made him want to kick things.

Phil directed him to the guest room, promised to call again tomorrow, and hung up with a quiet "I'll see you Saturday" that curled around Clint like a smug cat.

While Clint called to ask Grills to take Lucky for the night, he looked around the guest room with idle curiosity. Although it was mostly decorated in the tasteful yet impersonal style of guest rooms everywhere, scattered bits and pieces—a basketball trophy on the dresser, two black button-downs in the closet—suggested that this had been someone's room once.

Jemma? The shirts fit her black-white-gray aesthetic, but the steel blue and coppery brown of the paint did not.

Fitz? Possibly. Clint checked the trophy; it listed no name, only "Arlington Leadership High School Captain's Trophy 2002." In 2002, Fitz was thirteen. Clint couldn't picture Fitz as a thirteen-year-old basketball standout.

In 2002, Daisy was _eight_. Definitely out of the running.

Who the heck earned the trophy? Who once called this room home? Did Phil have another kid stashed somewhere? Was he looking at a "crazy relative in the attic" situation? He made a note to ask Daisy later, took out his hearing aids, and laid down on the criminally soft bed. Another nap sounded perfect right now.

*

It'd been years since someone with unknown intent snuck into Clint's room while he slept, but the memory of what it felt like was bone-deep. Clint jolted and likely owed his continued existence to getting tangled up in the blanket. Otherwise, he would've sat fully upright and run headfirst into the pistol pointed at his head.

And in that moment between asleep and awake—between, perhaps, life and death—Clint had a revelation.

Trust, Phil had said. Phil trusted Clint enough to call him when Daisy was hurt. Daisy trusted him enough to shuttle her from school to the hospital and back home. That trust wouldn't go away unless Clint somehow proved himself unworthy of it.

All his dithering about not wanting to date Phil unless he could be sure he wanted _Phil_ , rather than the chance to muscle into Phil's family—that was laughable. Phil _was_ his family. Clint couldn't date Phil without spending game day with Fitz and Daisy, or having movie nights where Jemma came, too, or spending immeasurably awkward afternoons furniture shopping with Nick. The thought of it being otherwise had never crossed his mind. So he would go on that date with Phil on Saturday, and he would accept that it was a date with Phil's entire family.

If he survived the next five seconds.

Clint was awake and done with his life-changing realization in a second that seemed like forever. Outside it was pitch dark (how the hell long had he slept?). But his would-be assailant had left the bedroom door ajar, and by the light spilling in from the hallway he could see that the hand holding the gun belonged to the person he least wanted to meet for the first time while in _her_ house, alone with _her_ teenage daughter, sacked out in _her_ guest room.

"Identify yourself," Melinda said.

"Clint Barton. I'm a friend of Phil's."

Clint watched Melinda's face cycle through emotions: surprise, confusion, frustration, confusion, and back to frustration, only now with a knowing cast. She leaned down, putting the gun on the nightstand, barrel pointed toward the window, and Clint could tell that she had started talking again but couldn't hear what she was saying.

"Wait!" Clint winced when Melinda jumped; apparently that'd been louder than he'd planned. He leaned over, swallowing hard when he looked at the grip of the gun resting inches from his hearing aids, but he grabbed them and put them in and tried not to dwell on how close he'd come to death in the last thirty seconds. "Okay," he said. He took a deep breath. "Hi, Melinda."

"You're Clint?" He couldn't place her tone. Suspicious? Surprised? Definitely confused.

"Yeah. Hi." He scooted up until he was sitting against the headboard and rubbed the back of his neck. "I'd, uh, hoped to meet you under better circumstances, but. Hi."

"Why are you _here_? Phil knew I was coming back today. He didn't need you to housesit."

"I'm not housesitting... exactly? Phil asked me to stay for Daisy. Because of the cast."

And, _whoa,_ okay, _holy shit,_ that was a _knife._ At his _throat_. It suddenly and painfully occurred to Clint that he had never asked what Melinda did for a living, and that that oversight might cost him his life before the sun rose. "What cast?" she demanded, and possibly the scariest thing about her was the absolute calm in her voice as she said it.

"On her arm!" Clint squeaked, heart racing as every movement of his mouth made the knife's edge dance against his Adam's apple. "It's why I'm here. Look, can you just—can you put the knife away? You're freaking me the fuck out."

"That's the _point_ ," she growled, but she took the knife away. She didn't _put_ it away, choosing instead to hold it about six inches in front of her body in a pose suggesting she could punch out with it and stab Clint any ol' place she chose should he put a foot wrong in this conversation.

"Thank you," Clint said sincerely. He rubbed his throat for a second and said, "Okay, look. Daisy took a dive off the set today. I was a performer for like six years; I know that shit can be dangerous. Anyway, she broke her arm; you and Phil were both out of the country; and Ni—uh, General Fury was away somewhere doing... general things... so, I guess, Phil called me?" He smiled sheepishly, which he wasn't sure _at all_ was the right play, but old man Carson had drilled into his performers from the instant they started working for him that you went further with a smile. Of course, "go further" was usually interpreted to mean "get away with more," but the principle seemed sound.

Melinda snorted and made the knife disappear into her clothes. "Of course he did," she muttered, which Clint didn't get, but, hey! No more knife! Bonus! "And you decided to stay the night in our guest room."

"Phil asked me to stay. He wasn't sure exactly when you were getting back, and he wanted someone here in case anything happened or Daisy needed help getting ready for school in the morning. I was going to sleep on the living room couch, but he offered the guest room. I laid down at about 6:30 for a nap, and must've slept for—what time is it, anyway?"

"3:45," Melinda said dryly.

"Shit." He scrambled to get out of the bed. " _Shit_ , I didn't—Christ, did Daisy get dinner? She has to take her pain meds with food. Does she need anything? Did I lock the front door when we came in?"

Melinda's expression—well, Clint wouldn't say it _softened_ , but the suspicion level dropped from _homicidal_ to _probationary_. "Relax," she said, and it sounded like an order. "The alarm turns on automatically at ten. And Daisy knows how to take care of herself."

"Of course she does, but the point of my being here is so she doesn't have to."

Melinda cocked her head to the side and considered him. "The point of you being here is so she doesn't feel like she's alone with a broken arm."

Clint considered that. If it were true, then it was _scary_. Fetching Daisy's pain meds and toast and ginger ale to take them with he could handle. Being in any way responsible for her emotional or psychological well-being? That was _not_ in Clint's wheelhouse. He was suddenly _exceedingly_ glad Melinda was home.

"Well," he said, starting to inch out of the bed, "She has you for that now, so I'll just—"

"Don't be an idiot. It's four in the morning. I'm not kicking you out. Stay the rest of the night. Get some sleep; you look like you need it. You can say goodbye to Daisy before she leaves for school."

Clint shouldn't. He slept best in his own bed, for one thing. Even better, no one at his place was trying to kill him. That he knew of.

But it would be pushing five by the time he got home, almost time to get up. Plus, he'd promised Phil that he'd look out for Daisy. And, yeah, he'd fallen down on that, but he didn't want to _give up_ , even if a far better player had come onto the field.

"Thanks," he said, sitting back down. "I appreciate it."

Melinda nodded once. She picked up the gun, vanished it as expertly as she had the knife, and turned to go. At the door she paused and gave Clint a long, considering look. "Thank you for looking out for them," she said softly.

Clint swallowed, throat suddenly dry. "You're welcome."

Then she gave him a barely-there grin, and, damn, did she and Nick sit around _practicing_ terrifying smiles on each other? "One other thing: my bedroom is directly above this one. And I'm a _very_ light sleeper." She paused for one perfect and heart-stopping moments before adding, "In case you need anything." Her smile widened. "Sleep well, Clint." Then she was gone.

Yeah, right. Like Clint was ever going to sleep again.

*

Clint stood in front of his closet and asked himself the question men had been asking themselves from time immemorial: _What do I wear on a first date with a guy I've possibly been dating for two months_?

Lately it seemed like everything from a stupid internet meme to a beautiful sunset over the Potomac made Clint think of Phil. He'd never been so grateful for unlimited texting, as four fifths of the Coulson-May-Fitz-Simmons-Johnson family were constantly blowing up his phone with _the_ most random messages, everything from Daisy's _plz tell dad python's make GREAT pets_ to Jemma's _Tell me, Clint, do you think of your white blood cells more like tanks or like wolves?_

So far today, he'd only received one text from Phil, a simple _I'm really looking forward to seeing you tonight._ It was enough.

Clint finally chose his newest, cleanest jeans and a dark purple button-down with the sleeves rolled up (everyone, who'd ever given him dating advice had encouraged him to show off his forearms whenever possible). He looked at Lucky, lying smack in the middle of Clint's rapidly growing pile of rejected outfits, and spread his arms. "What do you think?" Lucky barked once. _Good enough_. Clint grabbed his jacket, headed to the nearest Metro station, and made his way to the stop Phil had specified.

Phil was waiting, leaning against a building. He had on slightly worn brown cords and a cream sweater that Clint wanted to bury his face in. Clint jogged toward Phil, realized halfway there that he looked ridiculous, slowed down, and then thought maybe _that_ looked ridiculous, too. _Thirty-six,_ he reminded himself, _not sixteen._ He was still trying to get a handle on himself when he sort of tripped on nothing and fell into Phil. He hadn't been _trying_ to get Phil to grab his arms with both hands, but that's what happened, and Clint wasn't going to argue. "Hi," Clint said, ducking his head.

Phil smiled warmly. "Hey." He brought his face in close, and Clint wasn't sure what was going on until dry lips were pressing against his cheek.

"Oh!" Clint said, a small, pleased smile curving his mouth unbidden. "Hey."

Phil offered his arm, like the giant nerd he was, and Clint took it, like the sucker for a giant nerd _he_ was, and they set off toward the restaurant Phil had promised him he would love.

If they were in a movie, Clint thought at some point later, this would be the "date montage." Not just because Phil had assembled several of Clint's favorite activities into one evening (a restaurant Clint had never been to, an open-air arcade with stupid, rigged games that Clint won anyway, and disgusting, deep-fried, sugar-coated desserts) but also because, when he tried to capture the memory later, he could only grasp bits and pieces of an early autumn evening overlain with a gauzy haze, as though some celestial props department had draped midnight blue tulle and twinkling silver lights over everything.

But what stood out for Clint was that in all of those memories, Phil was _right there_ with him, a constant force of presence and touch. A hand on his elbow as they navigated to their table at the restaurant. An arm across his back reaching for the skee ball tickets. Glaze-sticky fingertips futilely attempting to wipe cinnamon sugar off Clint's lips.

 _And then_. The montage stopped. The tulle and fairy lights fell away. Everything felt sharp and real and present as Phil's fingers lingered on Clint's lips _._ Clint's tongue darted out, mostly involuntarily, and grazed Phil's index finger. Phil's breath caught, and Clint watched his eyes darken.

"Can I—" Phil asked, voice rough.

"I wish you would," Clint replied, equally shaky.

Phil's lips were warm and sugary, and his mouth tasted like funnel cake. Kissing him felt like being a kid again—endless summer nights and daring yourself to spin until you felt dizzy with it. Clint waited for that movie montage shimmer to come back, with soaring music this time, but it was just them, now, more real than Clint had ever felt, the lines of Phil's sweater under Clint's palms, the din of the arcade, their ragged breaths in his ears.

Clint pulled away slowly, eyes closed, burning the moment into memory.

"Hey," Phil murmured in his ear. "Okay?"

Clint opened his eyes and smiled. Phil's eyes were so blue in the evening light. Clint slid his hand down Phil's arm to his hand and laced their fingers together. "Perfect."

*

When they parted ways at the Metro station, Clint cupped Phil's jaw in his hand and kissed him like a slow-banked fire that could burn for a hundred years. "When can I see you again?" he murmured against Phil's lips.

"Soon," Phil said. "But—" He drew back enough to look Clint in the eyes. "There's no rush. I want to see you again soon, but we're both busy, and we have other obligations. Do what you'd usually do on a Sunday. Have a normal week. I'm not going anywhere."

Clint felt the truth of that in his bones. He _wanted_ to be near Phil, to climb inside of him and find the places that made him _himself_ , made him _real_. But he didn't feel a clawing need to be constantly in Phil's presence. For the first time _ever_ in a relationship, Clint knew he could take care of himself and still feel sure of _them_. "Yeah, okay," he said. "Neither am I."

*

On the ninth week, Clint Barton showed up at Phil Coulson's door with a 12-pack of beer in his hand, a one-eyed dog leaning against his leg, and a groundedness to his spirit like he'd never felt before.

Phil opened the door wearing a gray Chicago Bears sweatshirt that'd seen better days, jeans that looked like they'd been washed to decadent softness, and moccasin-style grandpa slippers. Behind him, Clint heard the ESPN commentators' pregame nattering and Daisy, Fitz, and Jemma squabbling over the remote. Everything Clint was _leaned_ toward everything Phil was.

Phil crossed his arms and tried to look stern while he fought a smile. "We talked about this."

Clint grinned and nodded, feeling like he could build a fucking _house_ out of all this happiness. "We did." He shrugged. "Turns out what I'd usually do on Sunday is hang out with you."

Phil laughed and reached out, grabbing Clint by the belt loops. He pulled Clint into a kiss, into his apartment, and into a future Clint had never dreamed of but now couldn't dream of living without.

Just maybe, acting like a grownup wasn't the _worst_ thing that could've happened.

**Author's Note:**

> This literally would not exist without the_wordbutler, whose Motion Practice series set the standard I'm still trying to reach. Thank you, friend.
> 
> Thanks so much for reading. Leave a comment or a kudo, if you've a mind to. I am slow but determined in my comment replies. Or come see what I'm up to [tumblrward](hugealienpie.tumblr.com/)!


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